Gravity begins with a stark fact written on the screen: “Life in space is impossible.”

It proceeds to add reasons to the scientific ones, then asks the audience to root for a pair of
astronauts left stranded in the frightening void of space, with the unmistakable contour of Earth
spread out below — so near and yet impossibly far away.

The first feature by director Alfonso Cuaron since the excellent
Children of Men in 2006,
Gravity combines a stripped-down narrative, expressive performances and a dazzling
combination of visual and aural effects to produce an immersive experience of terror and
determination.

Gravity wastes no time putting the viewer into the dislocating state of its characters: In
a long opening shot, the camera pans above Earth until the space shuttle Explorer comes into
focus.

Outside the craft, two

tethered astronauts work to repair the Hubble telescope while a third drifts around, powered by
a rocket pack.

He is Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), the mission commander and a wisecracking veteran intent on
setting a spacewalk record. One of the others is medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a
scientist on her first mission, with the anxiety to prove it.

Within moments, frantic warnings come from mission control (Ed Harris provides the voice) that
debris from an exploded Russian satellite is headed straight toward them. Before they have time to
re-enter the shuttle, large chunks of metal come sweeping through, destroying most of anything in
their path.

Stone is sent tumbling into the inky emptiness, but Kowalski is a resourceful pro, and soon the
two are plotting their rescue by possibly reaching an abandoned space station.

The concept behind
Gravity is both simple and profound, basic and existential.

The script by Cuaron and his son, Jonas, isn’t interested in grand philosophic commentary —
survival is the only item on the agenda — but one can’t help being dazzled by the immense vacuum,
utterly terrifying and serenely tranquil, in which the characters drift.

Every frame is technically stunning, making
Gravity one of the few films, along with
Life of Pi and
Hugo, that demands being seen in 3-D on the largest screen available.

Clooney and Bullock — she, in particular — provide the star power that keeps the film from being
almost too alienating. None of us can know how much of each performance should be credited to the
actors and how much to computer animation and motion-control techniques.

In the end, it hardly matters because the sum of the parts is a totally original experience.

If the film finds little evidence in that great void of any higher power, it also underscores
the power and truth of the human will to survive.